Two questions about simfiling

I haven't made a simfile in years and actually, I have never successfully made a GOOD simfile because I would always spam arrows and the arrows would often times not even match the music. Right now, I'm in the process of actually learning to make good simfiles and decided to start small. Right now, I'm working on a random song from "Rio the movie" called "Hot Wings (I Wanna Party)".

First question: I'm working on step pattern variation or making sure that the arrow patterns are not too repetitive. Is this good pattern variation?

Second Question: I'm having a hard time timing the arrows to the music accurately. I can get it close enough that when I instinctively hit the arrows to the music, I don't get a miss, but I'd like to fine tune the arrows. What's the best strategy for doing this?

Just by the sight of those green arrows, I dddon't think that's synced right.

Second question: Use the assist tick in the options and start out with only fourth notes. If fourth notes do not sound like they go to the music, you're using the wrong BPM.
Try using this thing: http://www.all8.com/tools/bpm.htm I tried it with your song and got about 130 bpm, but you should probably tap many many many times to get it. You may not have a whole number; don't be afraid to use decimals.
Of course (if you haven't already) you also need to adjust the offset so that the first note is actually on a beat.

Assist tick is your friend srsly.

It's critical to do the timing right before putting any arrows down, I think. Otherwise, you wind up with really wonky notes that are basically never on-beat.

I can't complain much on direction; too easily amused by simple charts to be a pro at finding good charts. I'm mostly having trouble telling what's supposed to be a 16th and what's an 8th right now. ^^; Certain things can be repeated if the timing is spiffed up. But this is just one sleep-deprived person's opinion.
Once you get the right BPM and offset, it'll probably make more sense to us and you could probably get better critique. The only bad news is you kind of have to redo the whole thing at this point, and instead translate the patterns into their correct notes. Good luck to you.

The first task is to choose a source. It's easy for beginners to choose something challenging or intermediate like Hot Wings, but for beginners I recommend easier songs that are more computer timed. You need to learn more about how a song is set to a beat and write the steps around the beat of the music.

Using record is a good idea, but you really want to stay away from 20th+ notes. Most notes that are 20+ you will want to get rid of. It helps sometime to have a good mental image of what the step chart will be like before and after using the record function. Even if the idea is gummy in the mind.

If you're just going to record it once and call it a day, then yes, it IS a bad idea. If you go over it and make changes to it, to the point where someone like me, Taro, DMAxel et al can look at it and not think "that's been Recorded", then you're doing it right. I tend not to use record, and instead just highlight each section with Space to select the start/end of each bit and Ctrl+P to play it.

The first task is to choose a source. It's easy for beginners to choose something challenging or intermediate like Hot Wings, but for beginners I recommend easier songs that are more computer timed. You need to learn more about how a song is set to a beat and write the steps around the beat of the music.

This is really good advice, especially in your situation. From the video, it looks like you're trying to follow the rhythms as closely as possible - which is admirable, don't get me wrong - but the rhythms in Hot Wings are pretty complex. Most of the song is straight 8ths, but there are sections of 16ths (a couple of which have some swing to them) and a few 24th-level triplets. If you're just getting into making your own sims, I'd suggest sticking with an 8th-note-based rhythm. You should still have quite a lot of freedom, and you can still make a really fun simfile out of just blue and red notes
For good examples of ideas for 8th-note charts, download a few of Chewi☆'s sims (if you can find them), and read this tutorial by ddrXero64.

I also suspect the BPM of 130 is more correct than the BPM of 130.139. It's rare that a song released in the last couple of years has a BPM that's not a whole number unless it was live recorded. Rare, but not impossible.

One practice technique that seems to work for a lot of members here is to take DDR songs with a known good offset and BPM, and restep them (without looking at the original chart). If you have any favorite DDR songs, give this a try.

Assuming you're using SM5:
- Get the correct bpm (for instance, i found it to be exactly 130bpm based from acid pro beatmapper)
- Before recording, sync it first in editor. Supply temporary notes of one arrow key of your choice repetitively using 4th notes until you reach at least 20 measures. (Tips: copy 4 measures of notes and paste it at the end as much as you can)
- Play the song, press F6 key once until the screen displays "sync song" (not sync machine or tempo, take note). Play as much as you can until the sync changes and you feel that the steps sync the music. Stop playing and save.
- Clear all temporary notes, snap your note to 16th and start recording.

I switched to a new computer for an increase in power and performance. The bad news is that we are actually selling my old computer; consequently, we formatted it back to the state it was when we originally bought it from the store.

I thought I had my Stepmania 5 simfile for Hot Wings, but I guess Stepmania 5 doesn't save to the .SM and .DWI files in the songs folder. I lost the simfile.

I'm going to have to start from the beginning and I intend to finish what I started. When I finish though, can someone test the file?

Also, if the steps aren't saved the the simfile in the songs folder. WHERE DOES IT SAVE TO!?